Powhatan Mystery 2007
Distributed by Jackson Associates, P.O. Box 1155, Mechanicsville, VA 23111; 804-381-1968
Produced by Richard Groover
Directed by Richard Groover
DVD, color, 20 min.
Sr. High - Adult
American Studies, Native American Studies
Date Entered: 11/09/2018
Reviewed by Michael J. Coffta, Business Librarian, Bloomsburg University of PennsylvaniaThis brief film summarizes the gambit of violent, subtle, and subversive methods the British colonists used to eliminate Native Americans in Virginia in 1600s. The British successfully crowded the Powhatans and other Native American tribes into smaller and smaller areas. Through treaties and through bloodshed, crop destruction, and new diseases, Virginians made way for colonial expansion and forced the Native Americans to the accept sovereignty of the English king.
Though short surveys of long periods of time are often cursory, this film does an exemplary job of detailing specific incidents as evidence of historical progressions, and doing so in such a way that the audience receives a breadth of substance.
I highly recommend this documentary to all audiences for its thorough yet lissome treatment of this protracted episode of violence in American history.